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Elminster
Speaks - Part 34

By Ed Greenwood

Malthuk's Tower

Now that I've armed ye with particulars to spare regarding the operation of
the portal often used by Perendra to enter or leave Voonlar unseen by Zhents
and other unfriendly folk, 'tis time to tell ye what to expect at its far end.

Some Harpers have warned me that the same portal leads elsewhere -- to various
Sword Coast locations, according to those who are muttering secrets my way --
if commanded by different words. However, those I know and have already given
lead to a locale surprising to some: the uppermost room of a ruined, leaning
stone tower in the heart of the southern city of Delzimmer. Specifically, they
lead to a windowless, conical stone chamber with a lofty vaulted ceiling that
stands within the spire of Malthuk's Tower.

The chamber is reputed locally to be haunted by the ghosts of two human mages
who slew each other therein. Malthuk, one of the mages who died in therein,
is said to have either built or inherited the tower some four centuries ago.
He dwelt there for twoscore-and-some years before being attacked by a former
apprentice, the overly ambitious, flame-red-bearded Halrith Esral. Some have
seen their silent phantoms chasing each other up and down the crumbling spiral
stone stair at the heart of the Tower, hurling spells at each other whose visual
displays are vivid, but -- like the battling mages themselves--no more than
harmless illusions.

The Tower itself exhibits a pronounced lean to the northeast, and its walls
display many long, interlinked cracks -- but those walls are over a foot thick
and have withstood many, many attempts on the part of young mages to fell them
with blasting spells. No doubt some such fool will succeed in bringing it down,
someday, but at my every visit it has seemed sturdy enough.

The Tower stands within a modest ring of broken-down walls, the space within
given over to the stone rubble of collapsed outbuildings, crawling vines and
shrubbery (dominated, I must say, by an overabundance of thorns), occasional
rats, and far more than occasional snakes. Indeed, small dusty vipers seem to
glide everywhere, most of them possessing poison feeble enough not to slay outright
but quite strong enough to keep the ruins uninhabited despite their central
location in Delzimmer.

It's clear that many folk have scoured the ruins repeatedly for treasure, even
to the extent of hammering holes in the interior walls of the Tower rooms, and
that they either successfully plundered it long ago or left empty-handed.

There are three cellar rooms: the well cellar; another an apparent granary
or pantry; and the third a cell for confining slaves, beasts, or perhaps persons
kidnapped for ransom or perhaps to suffer magical experimentation. My own explorations
have led me to suspect that the well in the tower cellar still yields drinkable
water and that its shaft probably conceals a storage niche for some magical
treasure or other (behind a loose stone, probably). However, many strong spells
lie in wait guarding whatever lies in the well -- and the guarded area is submerged
beneath the water. Moreover, evidence suggests that someone in Delzimmer maintains
some sort of magical alarm that alerts him or her to persons entering the well
cellar, whom they soon attack.

Beings may wander the rest of the Tower environs freely without attracting
such attention. Such explorers are warned that the well within the compound
walls but outside the Tower proper (in the southwest corner, under three stunted
bitterthorn trees) is tainted, probably by carrion.

Beasts, outlaws, spies, and persons arranging clandestine meetings for various
lawless purposes frequent the Tower compound, but no one dwells there long,
and there is no easily found treasure of any sort left for intruders to glean.

The Tower itself boasts five levels of empty rooms opening off its stair (all
but the uppermost pierced by many tall, narrow, arch-topped windows, and thus
given over to birds and years upon years of their accumulated droppings), but
it seems much less interesting than bustling Delzimmer, beyond its ring walls,
so in my next missive, we'll venture out into that city.